My Week

Last Wednesday I woke up with a stiffness in my lower back, and I don't mean the kind I greet my paramours with when they awake; hot, sharp stabs hit me as I got out of bed. Yeesh, I thought to myself. As opposed to, I guess, silver screen legend Errol Flynn. Hmm. Anyways, while the pain was unsettling and my back would stiffen quickly upon sitting, I was still able to “do my thing”, if you know what I mean. Well, I guess by “do my thing” I mean “go to work, then sit in my room wondering if I could get away with wearing my favorite orange t-shirt for another day without washing.” So it was a pain in the ass, but not an incredible hindrance. I posted a few times about the Vicodin GodIHateYourBack lent me not working; looking back on it, I’m not sure that if it didn’t work, or was just postponing the inevitable.

Saturday around noon I was preparing to go to the gym (I swear) and, as I was standing over my bed, probably thinking about how much I was gonna be able to give to UNICEF this year, shit locked up in my lower back that made me go “hmmm…this might suck...” and within seconds I was crumpled like a pile of beautiful, beautiful man onto my bed – the way I would describe what was happening is to picture someone putting on one of those corsets from the Civil War era, with someone in the back pulling all the laces together to tighten the corset; except in this case the laces were my sinewed in such a way as to resemble a bunch of pick-up sticks muscles constricting, and there was nobody behind me who was gonna make me a breakfast of hominy and biscuits when we were done tying things up. On my back my hips lunged into the air with the pain, and I couldn’t breathe. I could swear this episode lasted about 17 minutes, but in looking at the footage from a camera tucked cleverly between two books on a bookshelf I just happen to keep running it was about 7 seconds. Suddenly the pain stopped and I was flat on my back, panting; thankful I happened to land on my bed (some of you ladies may have thought the same thing once or twice, n'est-pas? yes-pas?) I was halfway down the length of the bed, and of course desired to get my head on the pillow to be able to stretch out. I dug in my elbows to start scootching back and BLAMMO!!!!! Again. What followed was about 25 minutes of a combination of a puppet show, gymnastics and footage of a Marine crawling under barbed wire, with maybe some racist Asian jokes thrown in to keep me amused through the ordeal, but I made it to the pillow. I lay there for a few minutes, and no pain came…Ahhhh, I thought, this won’t last long; perhaps some light stretching will get me back to the whoolly mammoth dung amazing physical specimen I am? I started to lift my leg and…well. You know.

So for fucking hours I fucking laid there, like a goddam overturned cockroach or turtle; or my prom date while I clumsily fretted away “…tear at the corner?...wtf???” For over 50 hours, I could not get out of bed. My most prized moment? About 4 in the morning I realized had to piss like a racehorse. Fucking christ. Now, at this point, having never thrown my back out before, I assumed that, like the first Battle of Bull Run, by the next afternoon or so things would be back to normal again. But I had to piss so fucking bad, and I couldn’t deal with both the excrutiating pain that came every so often AND having to piss, so I decided that one of them had to go. I said "BACK PAIN, you gottsta go!!!" Then I flailed about in agony for a while and decided that the piss might be easier to evacuate. I fumbled around in the dark with my hands and found nothing resembling a cup or bottle I could relieve myself with. Dammit. Wait wait, I thought with glee, is that a large bottle of Prell sham- whoops, sorry, me again. But heeeeeey, what have we here….since switching ends of my loft, I no longer needed three comforters and (nerds, please insert the name of whatever that thing Luke Skywalker slept inside of in The Empire Strikes Back) to stave off the -23 degree temperatures, and had 2 comforters too many; one which I was about to toss out anyway. I decided I would arrange the about-to-be-trashed comforter around my nether regions in such a way that I could piss into it; the comforter would nicely soak in the piss like a sponge, and I would leave the piss-soaked comforter by my bed to be dispatched within the next 10 hours or so, when I would be back on the front lines of hard-core NYC clubbing.

So I arranged the comforter around my man-parts in such a clever way so as to soak up the urine as quickly as possible, without getting a drop on my only 3-month old 200-count bedsheet. I make sure everything is arranged just so, lay my head back and let it fly.

Of course, at that moment my back decided to shoot out a spasm of pain that had me screaming like a fucking banshee. And not one of those cute Irish banshees you see in the stories, but the ones that, say, are inside a microwave oven while I'm blasting my taquitos. I lost control of my apparatus, which now took leave of it’s original mission and lurched about spraying TA—DA!!! Me!! as if it was a drunken lawn-sprinkler. As soon as the back pain vanished I gripped my treacherous friend and shoved it back into the direction of the comforter….where it immediately found a nice fold in which to form a rivulet that flowed as if poured from a lemonade pitcher perfectly into the opening the raised portion of my lower back offered it (“In here, piss!!! Hurry up guys!!”), at which point it spread itself evenly as far up my back as it could go. Which was pretty far. Hmm, I thought to myself, now not only am I completely immobile and in breathtaking pain, but I am absolutely drenched in my own piss. This is a nice moment, a real nice moment to always remember. The Beatles had their landing in America, Bobby Thomson had his Shot Heard Round the World, and I had my being covered in my own urine. That’s what life is about, people: moments. Moments that you should not let go by without stepping back and letting it all soak in.

So what could I do? I couldn’t move, and there was nobody I could call to say “hey, I’m drenched in piss and can’t move, can you come pick me up and throw me in the shower?” So I just lay there in the dark, waiting for the next shock of pain to hit. And by that point I had given up trying to be tough about it – I let out grievous cries of anguish, which thankfully I knew would not be heard anyways since my roommate’s snoring is used to simulate jet engine noise at flight academies. One time there was a bit of a lapse between seizures and I let my mind wander, and before I knew it I was imagining a female I know performing QUITE the lewd act upon myself. Even while racked in pain and covered in my own piss, I’m still a gotdam horndog. While normally after such a sentence I'd write “Still got it!!”here, what happened was as I was letting this performance play out in my head the next shockwave of pain hit me, and after it had finally abated I was so pain-and-panic stricken I actually started thinking holy shit – is this whole thing some sort of sign from God for me to quit objectifying women that way, even if only in my own thoughts while alone in my own bed??!?!?!! I quickly decided to make a deal with God, whom of course I only believe in at times like these, that I would forever give up objectifying women if he would make the pain go away. My prayer was answered with another jolt of pain, during which I swear in my delirium I heard a booming voice "AND I saw you beating off in that Hardee’s bathroom that time, you fucking dirtbag.” Sigh.

The morning came, and I began to wonder if I had any of the pills left over from the previous days; I imagined I might have one or two, maybe that would be all I needed to get out of bed, get my piss shit together, stretch my back out, and I’d be fine. I knew my roommate would be up and about at about 10:30, so I figured I’d call him into my room and get him to check my pockets for any pills. Ah, won't be long now. I checked the time: 6:30. Grrrrr.

Finally he was up and about, I called to him and told him what happened (except the piss part, of course…although I don’t seem to mind telling you people. Hmm.) I asked him to check my pants pockets, which were hanging on the chair at my desk. Now, some of you have met my roommate – a kinder, gentler soul there is not. He would give you the sweatshirt off his back. He is not, however, known for his expediency. He picked up my pants, and, since I knew I had to hurry him along a bit, I reminded him that the pain was, in fact, beyond excrutiating. Now, most people would quickly stick their hands into a pocket, feel around for any pills, then move on. Not our hero. One by one he would pull things out. “Piece of paper,,,this looks like pay stub…a Metrocard (adjusting glasses to read)…another sheet of paper…” as he lays each thing carefully on my desk. “Okay, next pocket…some change…” I then laid there as he carefully counted out the change, and then asked if there was a place I kept change.

“In that plastic cup on the foot locker” I sighed, half-heartedly wishing that cup had been nearer when I was looking for a place to piss other than, you know, my own body.

Long story short, about 45 minutes later after putting up some shelves in my room he found 2 pills left in my jacket pocket, which I gobbled down thanks to him getting me a cup of water, a straw, and some extra cups that we didn’t even pretend were for anything other than for me to piss in throughout the day. Pills taken I actually almost fell asleep, kinda felt the shit starting to work, reserved a little bit of hope for myself. Which, it must be said, was hard to do in my present condition.

Soon after Rrthur (yes ladies, THAT Rrthur!) called to check in on me, and when I told him my situation he quickly offered to bring the rest of his muscle relaxers over to me (he had hurt his back 2 months earlier...ironically, while putting the walls up in my room.) GREAT! I said…except how was he to get into my loft? Luckily, since I’m the only person around here who seems to have a somewhat “normal” work schedule, I knew my OTHER roommate would be leaving for work at about 3pm, and he could get the pills from Rrthur and bring them up to me as he left for work. I told Rrthur I’d call when I heard my roommate coming outta the shower, so that by the time he drove over my roommate would be dressed and ready to leave. Okay. So later on when I heard my roommate finishing his toilette and leave the bathroom, I called Rrthur and told him to come on over. At this time I yelled to roommate so he could come to my room and I could tell him what was happening.

Of course it turns out that my roommate 1) manages rock bands for a living, spending hours every night in ridiculously loud rock clubs 2) is therein, I would say without feeling as if I were name-calling, certifiably deaf and therein 3) both sleeps and goes about his day with his television CRANKED up as loud as possible. You could be just outside his door and have a hard time getting his attention. Luckily for me, I was about 100 feet away, separated by several walls and, as I quickly realized, somewhat limited in my screaming ability since the louder I tried to yell, the more it hurt. I'm surprised the fucking USC marching band didn't come parading through at that moment. Greeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaat. Why do things ALWAYS turn out so lucky for me?!??! I mean, it's not even fair for you guys, is it!?!!!!! I yelled a few times and then decided well, as soon as he’s dressed he’ll be walking right by my room, I’ll get him then. 10 mins. 15 mins. 20 mins passed, still no roommate. By now I know Rrthur is waiting patiently outside. 30 mins, 35, 40. I know Rrthur cannot stand out there forever, as he might have a life to live. Not quite as fabulous as the one I had going on at the moment, but a life nonetheless. I’m yelling, I’m yelling, nothing. FINALLY Rrthur calls me – I had completely forgotten than recently an intercom system had been installed in our building. I hadn’t really noticed or cared about the damn thing, as in this age of cell phones it seemed a bit superfluous. I believe the glory days of “bzzzzzzzzzzz hey it’s Jimbo, you guys up there?...Hello? You guys there? Guuuuuuuys?” may be long gone. Rrthur suggests he try getting my roomate's attention by buzzing the buzzer. Fuck it I said, give it try.

BBZZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZ!! BZZZZZZZZ! No response from down the loft; though it sure got my attention cause of course it turns out that the speaker for buzzer is right next to my room, it being next to the goddam door. I groan, thinking good luck him hearing it. But Rrthur kept buzzing and VOILA!! It worked!!!! Somehow the buzzing sound sliced through the world’s loudest tv/last night’s 19 bands in some club and my roommate heard it, and he came wandering down.

“We got an intercom?” he asks. Hmm. I fill him in, and he goes down to get the pills, and gets in the line du jour as he was leaving my room: “stay out from under them 300-lb women.” :)

So that was Sunday. Finally about 24 hours after that I tried to get out of bed for the first time, which I would describe as a tube of cookie dough Navy Seal rappelling down a 2-foot wall, but with more swearing and crying. Ugh. As the days have gone on it’s gotten better, especially once Rrthur brought me a heating pad and 9000 ibuprofen capsules. See the post below for the numbers re: shitting/eating; finally this evening I took my first shower in a week. And I’ve been sitting here for about 45 minutes, which is a good sign. Though as I think about it I am not looking forward to having to get up agaion. Oh well. Progress!!

Someone asked me which was worse, throwing out your back or the gout. I’d say the complete incapacitation via the thrown back makes it a bit apples and oranges. There was about a 48-hour stretch there where if a fire had broken out in my loft, there’s no way I coulda gotten out. As for the pain, it’s different than the gout in that the pain is incredible and sends you into a panic, but it’s very quick and sporadic and be controlled if you keep absolutely still; the gout, especially in a joint like the knee, is ruthless in it’s insistence, never letting up it's grinding and tearing until it completely sucks your soul. But at least with the gout you can drag yourself around if need be. I feel like there's a "like my ex used to do with me!" joke here; but what the fuck, am I getting paid to come up with this shit?

For my next trick, I will get the scurvy while recovering from consumption. Sigh.

SOOOOO, that was my week. I still can’t walk except super-slowly, it’s still painful to get out of a chair or bed, my back’s still stiff, I’m addicted to my own piss and I can’t really bend over or down; but apparently I can sit down long enough to get back to what I do best: making your lives worthwhile! ;) I see in my absence I’m still HBIC, as nobody tried to take a shot at The King while he was gone. Wise.

I’m BACK MOTHERSCRATCHERS!!!!